Your daily briefing for the latest news in energy, tech, finance, and politics.
Energy
A Climate Accord Based on Global Peer Pressure
NEW YORK TIMES
Coral Davenport
Shortly before 2 a.m. on Sunday, after more than 36 straight hours of negotiations, top officials from nearly 200 nations agreed to the first deal committing every country in the world to reducing the fossil fuel emissions that cause global warming. … But the driving force behind the new deal was not the threat of sanctions or other legal consequences. It was global peer pressure. And over the coming months, it will start to become evident whether the scrutiny of the rest of the world is enough to pressure world leaders to push through new global warming laws from New Delhi to Moscow or if, as a political force, international reproach is impotent.
Why 2014 Is a Big Deal
NEW YORK TIMES
Thomas Friedman
When they write the history of the global response to climate change, 2014 surely would have been seen as the moment when the climate debate ended. Alas, though, world crude oil prices collapsed, making it less likely that the world will do what the International Energy Agency recently told us we must: keep most of the world’s proven oil and gas reserves in the ground. As the I.E.A. warned, “no more than one-third of proven reserves of fossil fuels can be consumed prior to 2050” — otherwise we’ll bust through the limit of a 2-degree Celsius rise in average temperature that scientists believe will unleash truly disruptive ice melt, sea level rise and weather extremes.
How the ‘War on Coal’ went global
POLITICO
Erica Martinson
Congressional Republicans who vow to defeat President Barack Obama’s “War on Coal” can do little to defend the industry against a growing international threat — the drying up of its once-promising markets overseas.
More turbulence ahead for oil prices
USA TODAY
John Waggoner
Oil prices could slide again this week as the market digests statements from OPEC on Sunday indicating it would not prop up the price of crude. The head of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Abdalla Salem el-Badri, said Sunday that OPEC has no set price target for oil, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Technology
Internet Tax Reprieve
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
A legislative hostage has been released—at least until next October. Buried inside Congress’s omnibus spending bill is an extension of the Internet Tax Freedom Act through the end of the 2015 fiscal year. Most gratifying for consumers is that this ban on Internet access taxes has not been bundled with a separate plan to boost sales tax collections for goods purchased online.
7 internet policy ideas that everyone can agree on
VOX
Eli Dourado and Danielle Kehl
1) Rein in surveillance by the National Security Agency … 2) Get rid of bad software patents … 3) Reduce excessive copyright protections … 4) Don’t weaken smartphone encryption … 5) Free up more electromagnetic frequencies to speed up mobile networks … 6) Remove government oversight of internet names and addresses … 7) Don’t let the United Nations expand its role in internet governance
How Chuck Schumer became Silicon Alley’s closest ally
WASHINGTON POST
Brian Fung
All the tech talk is no accident, Schumer said. “For all the years I’ve been a senator and congressman, jobs in New York has been a key thing for me,” he said. “With financial services having its trouble, what is going to be the future of New York in terms of young people getting good jobs? Clearly, tech is our future.”
What the FCC’s chairman told Verizon is a huge deal for net neutrality
WASHINGTON POST
Brian Fung
But FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, a former tech lobbyist himself, shot down that argument Thursday. Responding to comments made by Verizon’s chief financial officer this week, Wheeler said the telecom industry’s been plenty willing to invest when it sees a market opportunity. He pointed to a massively successful auction of government airwaves that’s raised more than $43 billion so far, nearly quadruple some of the sunniest predictions. He cited Wall Street analysts who say strong regulations would be, in Wheeler’s words, “less of a bugaboo if it’s done correctly.” And, he said, infrastructure upgrades have continued without much problem when it comes to other services regulated under Title II of the Communications Act, the part of the law that regulators are considering applying to broadband companies.
Web firms won’t promise no ‘fast lanes’
THE HILL
Julian Hattem
Executives from Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications said that they don’t currently allow companies such as Netflix to pay for quicker service for users and aren’t interested in them in the future, regardless of the content of new net neutrality regulations. They, declined, however, to make a firm pledge against ever permitting the deals.
Making commercial and recreational drones safe
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
The FAA should finally release rules governing commercial drone flights shorn of the absurd requirement that operators must have hours of cockpit time in real planes. Commercial drone pilots should have adequate practice on the equipment they are actually using, and they should be up to speed on FAA rules on unmanned aircraft, air traffic control practices and how to deal with bad weather. They don’t need to know how to land a Cessna. If the FAA doesn’t make that clear, Congress should. Meanwhile, the FAA should also find better ways to keep drones out of sensitive airspace.
Finance
Too big to resist: Wall Street’s comeback
FINANCIAL TIMES (Subscribe)
Edward Luce
Last week’s spending bill contained another item that had nothing to do with keeping government open. This one upped the limit on how much an individual can give to a political party — it now exceeds $700,000. No prizes for guessing which sector of the US economy is the largest electoral donor. None, either, for which is most able to mould regulations to its taste.
Treasury fight escalates
POLITICO
Ben White
Fresh from quelling the progressive uprising against the “cromnibus” spending bill, the White House isn’t backing down on its other major fight with Democratic progressives: the nomination of a Wall Street banker for a top Treasury job. Liberal opposition to Obama’s choice of investment banker Antonio Weiss as treasury undersecretary only hardened in response to the inclusion of a bank-friendly provision in the Obama-backed spending bill.
Dodd-Frank tweaks merit further discussion but aren’t worth a government shutdown
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
Substantively, the objections that Ms. Warren and her allies raise are valid but possibly overstated. It’s true that repealing Section 716 would push federal policy in the direction of expanding the taxpayer safety net under Wall Street, rather than forcing the financial sector to sink or swim on its own. Whether the number and kind of derivatives that would be pushed back “in” to the banks would, in practice, radically destabilize them at taxpayer expense is far less certain. Indeed, the bank holding company as a whole would still be on the hook for losses in its derivative-trading subsidiary; as then-Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke observed in 2013, “It’s not evident why that makes the company as a whole safer.”
Warren to banks: We should have ‘broken you into pieces’
THE HILL
Ramsey Cox
“I agree with you Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect,” Warren said. “It should have broken you into pieces. “If we want to open up Dodd-Frank, let’s do it and really end too big to fail rather than just saying we did.”
At Big Banks, a Lesson Not Learned
NEW YORK TIMES
Gretchen Morgenson
Are the colossal regulatory fines extracted from big banks today likely to deter their officials from violating the same rules tomorrow? Or are these billion-dollar settlements viewed simply as a cost of doing business, and not a very large one at that? Judging from a regulatory action brought last week against 10 mostly large financial firms, the answers are “no” and “yes.”
Wall Street’s Revenge
NEW YORK TIMES
Paul Krugman
One of the goals of financial reform was to stop banks from taking big risks with depositors’ money. Why? Well, bank deposits are insured against loss, and this creates a well-known problem of “moral hazard”: If banks are free to gamble, they can play a game of heads we win, tails the taxpayers lose. That’s what happened after savings-and-loan institutions were deregulated in the 1980s, and promptly ran wild. Dodd-Frank tried to limit this kind of moral hazard in various ways, including a rule barring insured institutions from dealing in exotic securities, the kind that played such a big role in the financial crisis. And that’s the rule that has just been rolled back.
Meet the SEC’s Brainy New Crime Fighters
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Scott Patterson
Long outgunned by Wall Street’s legions of Ph.D.s, the Securities and Exchange Commission is arming itself with mathematicians and computer programmers of its own to catch bad market actors. The question is whether this is an arms race government regulators can hope to win.
Politics
With nominations, Harry Reid lands a late punch before bowing out as majority leader
WASHINGTON POST
Sean Sullivan
After Reid (D-Nev.) exploited a weekend rebellion on immigration by rogue Republican senators as a $1.1 trillion spending bill was up against the clock, the Senate will move ahead this week on key executive branch nominations submitted by President Obama that appeared to be stalled not long ago. The conservative uprising that Reid maneuvered to his advantage has also rekindled concerns about rancor among Republicans. As Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) gets set to succeed Reid as majority leader, the familiar GOP problem has again turned attention away from Democrats’ troubles.
Health spending — under control?
WASHINGTON POST
Robert Samuelson
Health spending faces increases from three sources: Obamacare (more people will be insured); an aging population (older people use more health care); and expensive new medical technologies. If market and regulatory pressures don’t offset these gains, spending may again outpace the economy. That’s what the CMS anticipates. By 2023, health spending will hit 19.3 percent of GDP, up from 17.4 percent today, it predicts. Health care would resume draining resources from the rest of the economy. The trick is to prevent this without compromising the quality of care. No small feat.
A Post-ObamaCare Strategy
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
The immediate Republican goal should be to make insurance cheaper so people need less of a subsidy to obtain insurance. This means deregulating the exchanges, plank by plank. Devolve to states their traditional insurance oversight role, and allow them to enter into cross-border compacts to increase choice and competition. Allow insurers to sell any configuration of benefits to anyone, anywhere, and the private market will gradually heal. The liberal states that prefer ObamaCare’s command-and-control can keep it. In return, Republicans can offer to restore the subsidies for Mr. Obama—albeit smaller and in the form of a fixed-dollar tax deduction or credit for people who don’t benefit from the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored insurance.
G.O.P. Angst Over 2016 Led to Provision on Funding
NEW YORK TIMES
Nicholas Confessore
The secret negotiations that led to one of the most significant expansions of campaign contributions in recent years began with what Republican leaders regarded as an urgent problem: How would they pay for their presidential nominating convention in Cleveland in two years? The talks ended with a bipartisan agreement between Senate Democrats, led by the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and House Republicans, led by Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, that would allow wealthy donors to begin giving more than $1 million every election cycle to each party’s national committees.
Congress quietly increases campaign finance
USA TODAY
Editorial
As if there weren’t enough mega donors pumping multimillions into politics already, Congress opened yet another avenue for influence Saturday night, when, conveniently for senators, almost no voters were watching.
Fundraising now more transparent
USA TODAY
Reince Priebus
In short, the new policy will increase transparency and fairness in political fundraising, protect the reallocation of money to cancer research, and keep alive the American tradition of political conventions.
Jeb Bush’s move to release book, e-mails stokes expectations of White House bid
WASHINGTON POST
Robert Costa and Matea Gold
Jeb Bush’s decision to release a policy-laden e-book and all his e-mails from his time as governor of Florida has further stoked expectations among his allies that he will launch a presidential bid. Bush announced the moves in an expansive interview that aired Sunday on a Miami television station. He mused about the kind of campaign he would run and addressed his views on immigration and education reform that rile parts of the GOP base.
Why Jeb Bush Is No Mitt Romney
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Karyn Bruggeman
Elements of Romney’s business background had been the subject of attack ads dating back to his first Senate run in 1994, as Romney’s time at Bain & Company and Bain Capital predated his days as governor. But Bush’s involvement with banks like Lehman Brothers and Barclays is comparatively recent and relatively unexplored. Romney also spent years as the presumptive GOP nominee ahead of 2012, giving Democrats more than enough time to find the answers to any questions that remained. Bush’s re-emergence after years of private life is forcing Democrats to play catch-up.
Undocumented Immigrants Line Up for Door Opened by Obama
NEW YORK TIMES
Julia Preston
They pushed strollers, tugged toddlers and streamed into the convention center in the heart of this city on Sunday, thousands of immigrants here illegally and anxious to find out if they could gain protection from deportation under executive actions by President Obama. The crowd, waiting in a long snaking line to check in, was drawn by an information session organized by advocacy groups offering people initial assessments to see if they meet the requirements to apply to stay in the country and work.
Cheney: ‘I’d do it again in a minute’
POLITICO
Josh Gerstein
Former Vice President Dick Cheney unapologetically pressed his defense of the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation techniques Sunday, insisting that waterboarding and other such tactics did not amount to torture and that the spy agency’s actions paled in comparison to those of terrorists targeting Americans.
